Breaking: House of Reps admits motion on displaced Tivs initially rejected by deputy speaker

The house of representatives Tuesday has finally admitted a motion from the “Mutual Union of the Tiv in America” which was earlier rejected by deputy Speaker Idris Wase.

The motion was rejected last two weeks by the deputy speaker who had questioned the eligibility of the signatories because they do not reside in Nigeria.

Femi Gbajabiamila, the speaker, admitted the motion for consideration during Tuesday’s plenary session when it was presented again by Mark Gbillah from Benue state.

The motion accused the federal government of not resettling the Tiv people displaced from their ancestral land through various attacks.

Thousands of Nigerians were reportedly displaced in the north-central region as a result of the farmer-herders crises.

The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Idris Wase, in his defense, said his decision to prevent a member of the House, Mark Gbilah, from laying a petition last Thursday “was strictly based on rules of parliamentary procedures”.

The deputy speaker disclosed this in a statement by his media aide, Umar Puma, on Monday.

Mr Wase was reacting to a trending video, showing him preventing Mr Gbilah from laying a petition while he (Wase) was presiding during plenary session.

Mr Gbillah, who represents Gwer East-Gwer West constituency of Benue State, was presenting a petition by a socio-cultural association based in the United States but was disallowed from doing so by the deputy speaker.

The lawmaker explained the synopsis of the petition that some indigenes of his state had been sacked from their ancestral lands.

The video had since been trending with many Nigerians criticising the deputy speaker for not allowing Nigerians in diaspora to air their views.